Since Prince George's first public appearance aged one day, royal baby
watchers have been rushing to buy up whatever babywear brand he happens to
be wearing

Seven million people in the United Kingdom tuned in to watch the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge introduce their baby prince to the world the day after his birth. The beaming parents appeared outside the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, London, with the healthy boy wrapped in a traditional white receiving blanket – a staple in any new baby’s wardrobe. They spoke to the media for a few moments, telling of how they felt ‘overjoyed’ at their son’s arrival.

A little later they left the hospital for home. At this point the frenzy began. The newborn was now being kept cosy in a white swaddling wrap decorated with a green bird print, and fellow new parents were immediately desperate to know where this product was from. While you can buy a traditional blanket near identical to the Prince’s from almost any children’s retailer, the swaddling cloth had a unique identity. No other would do.

Propelled by social media, word spread of the manufacturer, Aden + Anais, and within four hours the company’s website had crashed. The bird-print cloth came from a four-pack of Jungle Jam swaddling wraps, which retail at £44.95. In nine days the brand sold 7,000 of that item. Average daily visits to the Aden + Anais website were up 1,960 per cent in the week after the Prince was revealed. You had only to type ‘royal swaddle’ into Google and you would immediately find out where you could buy the same one.

The brand’s founder, Raegan Moya-Jones, said at the time, ‘We are truly grateful and so delighted that the couple chose to debut the Prince in Aden + Anais. It is such an honour.’ The firm – founded by Moya-Jones in 2006 and named after her two child­ren – wasn’t in need of a royalty-fuelled shot in the arm, having been a favourite of celebrities since its beginning – Gwen Stefani’s son Apollo and various members of Heidi Klum’s brood are among its roster of young wearers.

The Duchess of Cambridge has long held the power to provoke retail explosions with her sartorial decisions. Her son has extended her influence, and the ‘royal baby effect’ now comfortably rivals the ‘Kate effect’.

Arriving at Sydney airport, Prince George is wearing a Les Petites Abeilles romper and Early Days shoes (GETTY IMAGES)

Until April, when Prince George went to New Zealand and Australia on his first official engagement, only two portraits of him, taken in August and March, plus the photographs of his christening in October, had been made public. It is not surprising, then, that in April global Google searches for Prince George rocketed to more than 1.5 million, compared with the average of 9,800 in other months. The tour, with 450 accredited media from around the world attending, produced many pictures of his ‘style’, and shoppers were able to ‘get the look’. The royal baby effect was back in full force.

Désirée von Hohenlohe, a Belgian children’s clothing designer who launched her company, Les Petites Abeilles, in February last year, is still benefiting from the fact that Prince George wore a sailing boat romper suit by her brand on the tour. She receives orders from all over the world, showing just how far-reaching the Prince’s effect is. ‘Yesterday we got an order from Singapore. We have received orders from Australia, the US, Japan,’ she says. In the two months since the tour she says she has ‘received orders in the hundreds’.

Von Hohenlohe had sent the romper suit to the Duke and Duchess as a gift when the Prince was born, but she never expected that he would even wear it. And certainly not so soon. ‘Prince George is a big baby,’ she says. ‘The one I sent was intended for this summer. I roughly counted the months, but when I saw him I thought there was no way he was ever going to wear it because it would be much too small by then,’ she says.

She describes Les Petites Abeilles as a ‘micro business’. ‘It is very sweet that the Duchess chose a brand that was unknown,’ she says. ‘I was wondering whether I should continue with this business and professionalise it or leave it and go back to my old job.’ The brand was a project she pursued while on maternity leave from her job as a policy officer, with all the garments hand embroidered in Madagascar using honeycomb stitch. Given the response she has had since George wore the romper suit, she has decided to run the label full-time.

Orders were flooding in for Prince George’s romper suit before von Hohenlohe had found time to launch even a simple website, never mind an ecommerce site. ‘It is amazing that people ordered without a website,’ she says. ‘They emailed me and say they want the same romper suit that Prince George wore.’ It costs €50 and €7 to ship to the UK.

Von Hohenlohe found it amusing when she had a private sale at her home a month after the tour. ‘Instead of the 20 friends I usually have at my sales, more than 100 people turned up,’ she says. ‘What I realised is that there are entire blogs dedicated to what Prince George is wearing. I had this sailboat design last year as well,’ she continues. ‘Obviously people were not as excited by it then as they are now. They held it in their hands at my previous sale and hesitated to buy it. In May people walked through the door and before even saying hello said, “We’re looking for the Prince George piece.”’

A royal birthday celebration, Telegraph magazine cover 19 July 2014

The Prince is not only helping launch new businesses. He has revived heritage ones, too. The leather pre-walker shoes he wore throughout the tour – he has them in navy and white – are a style called Alex by Early Days, a Leicester-based company that has been manufacturing handmade child­ren’s shoes since 1952. Within half an hour of the first picture of the Prince getting off the plane appearing online, the company closed its website. ‘We were inundated,’ Paul Bolton, the company’s director and the son of its founder, says. ‘The effect Prince George wearing our shoes has had on business has been astounding.’ Sales increased by 200 per cent in the eight weeks after the tour.

Early Days still has the following message on its website: ‘The recent media coverage showing our shoes being worn by Prince George has resulted in unprecedented demand and we have been forced to close our online sales until further notice. Our shoes are available at all good babywear retailers around the UK, and we are doing our utmost to keep these outlets supplied. In the meantime we do apologise for any inconvenience caused.’

‘I wish we could supply the demand,’ Bolton says. ‘But our order book is full so we have had to turn business away. We are very fortunate. I had often wondered in recent years whether we were daft to be sticking with British manufacturing,’ he adds.

Bolton wants to take on extra people but says he has been struggling to find anyone skilled enough. ‘I found one machinist to help,’ he says. ‘But they are like gold. The shoe trade has been decimated in recent years, and finding skilled people is difficult.’

Another British manufacturer having a similar experience is the Welsh knitwear company Corgi, established in 1892. Corgi made the cashmere jumper with george emblazoned on it, which the Prince wore for his official portrait in April. The jumper was specially made by the company, which holds a Royal Warrant, and given to the Prince of Wales to celebrate his becoming a grandfather.

Although the managing director, Chris Jones, fifth generation at the family-owned business, says that they ‘certainly didn’t send the jumper for publicity’, they were delighted when they saw the portrait. Jones saw a huge spike in traffic to the Corgi website the day after the picture was published, with 4,000 visits, and says, ‘The George sweater has renewed interest in our children’s range.’

Corgi makes knitwear for big fashion houses such as Burberry, and for the Savile Row brands Gieves & Hawkes and E Tautz. That is its bread and butter. But after the interest in the George jumper, it plans to launch a small collection of Corgi child­ren’s clothes in the autumn. ‘We have produced children’s items for 10 years, but we are going to make more of it because there is a big swing back to people wanting to buy things made in Britain, even in the children’s market,’ Jones says.

Prince George wearing polo shirt by Rachel Riley (GETTY IMAGES)

Prince George wore at least five Rachel Riley items on the tour, including chunky knit cardigans, a striped polo shirt and a pair of navy sailing boat dungarees that Riley designed with a royal baby boy in mind. ‘When I heard [the Duchess] was expecting a baby I designed a heritage collection,’ Riley says. ‘I have always looked at the Royal family for inspiration because we are a British company producing clothes with a traditional aesthetic.’

Needless to say, the dungarees are now considered an ‘iconic’ piece, and Riley will carry that design over from season to season. ‘We will not do that with every piece the Prince might wear,’ she adds. ‘But he wore the dungarees on a very special occasion – his first official engagement.’

‘What has been really lovely about the Prince George effect,’ Riley continues, ‘is that people have come into our shops simply to talk about Prince George. They may not even buy anything. It has all been very joyous.’

Borrallo is rumoured to have bought the Early Days Alex pre-walkers, also worn at the annual Jerudong Trophy Polo Match, from the Royal Tunbridge Wells children’s boutique Children Salon. Paul Bolton of Early Days is unsure. ‘I was told by one of our top retailers that the nanny bought a pair,’ he says. ‘But recently another of our customers came to see me at the factory and claimed Kate bought a pair. It is possible that the nanny purchased one pair and Kate went out and bought another. We are just thrilled to see him in them.’